General gaming discussion

It's very funny how suddenly an Annapurna game is an 'industry plant' (the new conspiratorial phrase of choice) by nepo baby Megan Ellison. As opposed to all their previous commercial and critical hits like Outer Wilds, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Stray, Cocoon, Neon White, What Remains of Edith Finch etc…

Don't get me wrong - I've grown much more skeptical of Annapurna Interactive since the mass staff exodus a few years back (and Ellison's reported role in it), and I'm openly hostile towards overtly ideological actors Larry and David Ellison's increasingly corrosive influence in American media. But Annapurna as a games publisher has had a major influence in bringing some really great games to people's attention (their actual job as a publisher!) for a decade now, and they've funded games by some of the most interesting developers out there (same as they've done in film). So kind of amusing now seeing them suddenly painted as some big nefarious propaganda outlet by people desperate to paint a conspiracy around Mixtape.

It's entirely irrelevant whether any given individual here thinks it's a masterpiece or not. It is, however, not remotely inconceivable that another individual writing or talking about the game in a media outlet does genuinely think it is a masterpiece because it had a strong personal impact on them (just as the opposite stance is equally valid, as is everything in between). Because different opinions exist - a basic fact that some people on X and YouTube seem very insistent on rejecting, because they are too insecure to accept the premise that anyone thinks differently than they do about video games.

'The discourse' is much more about that than it is about Mixtape as a creative work, and its subjective successes / failures in that respect. Because the people shouting loudest, as usual, don't care about that - they only care about there being something to get angry about, and rile up their audience about it. It's Mixtape this week, it'll be something else soon enough (though it'll always be IGN, because they really care about IGN review scores despite claims to the contrary).